Grey
by tiny-phoenix
Summary: Hermione's thoughts and feelings as she is forced to wipe the memories of her parents in order to aid Harry in his quest.


As she looked out of her bedroom window at the grey sky, the grey clouds, the grey street with its grey sidewalk and the grey cars driving slowly, Hermione couldn't help but ask herself, _Why couldn't my life be grey?_ It would have made everything easier if her life had turned out grey and boring. She and her parents would have been safe and she wouldn't be standing in a mostly-empty room with a little mismatched handbag clutched in her nearly-white knuckles. She probably would have gone to school for dentistry and ended up just like her parents, with a sound job in a sound home in a nice neighborhood with more grey streets and grey cars. She would have had a slightly boring husband and slightly boring children and perhaps they would have grown up to be dentists as well.

She blinked. No, that was not her life. Her life was not grey with dullness or redundancy. Her life was instead grey and cold with the shadow that she constantly lived under, sneaking owls in the dead of night to make sure that all of her friends and loved ones were still alive and breathing. This shadow followed her everywhere. She carried her wand at all times, hidden underneath her clothing but just close enough so that it could be whipped out should the need arise suddenly. She examined everyone she saw on the street, muggle or not. She had often found herself shaking herself out of a suspicious reverie, suddenly aware that she was staring at someone who in truth, held no threat to her or her family.

In the midst of her deep thought, the little handbag had slipped from her grasp and fluttered to the floor. The unusual sound of glass breaking as the bag hit the ground was enough to jolt Hermione from her thoughts and she was finally able to drag her eyes away from the window and the grey scene that lay outside. Sniffling and shaking her head, she bent to carefully pick up the bag. She opened it and peeked inside, taking a mental inventory of what had been broken and what was still intact. "Good, only one vial broke," she murmured to herself, shutting the bag securely and slinging it across her chest.

When she got to the door of her bedroom, Hermione allowed herself one last look back at the room that had been hers since she had been a little girl. She looked at the bed, the bed where she had first opened the letter that had invited her to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. _Things change so quickly_, she thought to herself, softly shutting the door behind her. As she heard the quiet click of the lock, she wondered if she would ever see Hogwarts again. Would she ever sit in the Gryffindor common room, at her favorite place by the fire, a book on her lap and a cup of cocoa on the table next to her? Would she ever again hear the echoing tap of her footsteps on the stones in the halls?

She shook her head slowly, raising a hand to hold to her forehead. She leaned against the hallway wall. _I can't think of this now. One thing at a time._ She repeated this phrase to herself as she made her way down the carpeted hallway. _One thing at a time_. She paused at the top of the stairs and looked at the picture of her and her mother that hung on the wall. They had taken the picture while on vacation in the Forest of Dean. Hermione had perched herself on top of a fallen tree trunk while her mother leaned against it, tilting her head towards her daughter and smiling happily. It took Hermione a moment to realize that she was staring, wide-eyed, at the photo. She tore her eyes away from it and focused on making the suddenly-overwhelming first step down the staircase. _One thing at a time_.

At the bottom of the stairs, she saw the notepad that the family used for taking notes when someone called and a message needed to be taken. The same thought had occurred to her several dozen times throughout the past couple of days. Should she leave a note? Some message to let them know that she _did_ indeed exist, that she would be back one day for them, if she lived that long? She had decided against it. Even a note would put them in jeopardy. If they knew nothing, they would not be captured to reveal anything. And besides that, the note would be so incredibly cryptic and eerie that they might just decide to throw it out and forget about it anyway.

Hermione looked up and saw the back of her parents' heads as they watched the television peacefully. They sat next to each other. Her mother was raising a cup of tea to her lips and her father was chuckling at something that had been said on the television. As her mother set down her cup, she turned and asked, "What do you want for dinner tonight?"

Her father paused his chuckle and said, "Well.. make something that Hermione likes very much. She's been very down lately."

Her mother nodded and although Hermione could not see her face, she knew that she was smiling.

That was it. She almost spun around and rushed back up the stairs, almost threw herself onto her bed, almost unpacked everything, almost abandoned her plan. _No_. She froze, kept herself rooted to the bottom step. _Don't be selfish_, she thought. _Save them._ She bit her bottom lip to keep a tiny sob from escaping her lips. She clutched the little, mismatched handbag so tightly that the fibers were making marks on the palm of her hand.

Hermione looked down, at her right foot hovering just off of the last step. Somehow, she couldn't yet muster up the will to bring her foot down. It would seal her fate, and theirs. She shut her eyes. Immediately, she heard voices, whispers at first. Hours spent in the library, researching any information that could prove useful. Finding nothing most of the time. Furious, hushed whispers in the top floors of the Burrow with Ron and Harry. Now, the voices became louder. Yells and names being called down the corridors of Hogwarts. The din in the Great Hall at dinnertime. They all swam around her head and when Hermione managed to open her eyes, tears poured from them. The voices dissipated. This was a necessary thing. She had to save them. She wouldn't let their voices disappear.

She took a very deep breath and let her foot fall to make contact with the floor. As quietly as she could, she walked forward. She drew her wand from her side and pointed it shakily at the back of her parents' heads. She stood very still and blinked slowly, trying to steady her hand. She had only minimal success, but decided that it would have to do.

The first time that she opened her mouth to say the spell, only choked air came out. Hermioned gritted her teeth, waited a few moments, and then opened her mouth once more. She managed to steady her hand a little bit more and even as she uttered the spell that would change, and possibly better, her parents' lives, she saw her father raise his arm to wrap it around his wife. The word left her lips, just above a whisper, and her own voice sounded foreign and more confident than she felt.

"_Obliviate_."

The white light seeped slowly from the tip of her hand, and her father's arm stopped in midair. He looked at his wife and then at his raised arm, no doubt wondering what he was in the midst of doing. He put his arm back into his lap and Hermione crept backwards as quietly as she could. She took one last look at her parents and walked down the front hallway, watching herself disappear from family photographs as she reached the front door. She eased it open and stepped out onto the street, taking a few more steps before looking up at the house that was no longer hers. She spun around and walked rigidly down the street, her movements feeling awkward and unwanted. With every step, she moved farther from the two people who had loved her through so much, she moved farther away from her life.

The greyness of the day swallowed her up and even if she wanted to look back one last time, she couldn't.


End file.
